UK businesses pledge to tackle nation’s literacy crisis in 2018
63 leading businesses have joined the fight to tackle the UK’s literacy crisis — a crisis which, over the past decade, has seen more than 500,000 disadvantaged children start primary school without the reading, writing and communications skills they need to succeed in education, work and life.
Businesses including Amazon, Facebook, McDonald’s, the Premier League and WHSmith have signed the Vision for Literacy Business Pledge 2018 which will support them to take practical steps throughout the year to address literacy challenges within their workforce, in the local communities where they work, and on a national level. The pledge will also help businesses target their efforts where they can make the biggest difference — in the early years.
Children who start school with poor reading and writing skills have their futures cut short before they’ve even started. As a child they won’t be able to succeed at school, as a young adult they will be locked out of the job market, and as a parent they won’t be able to support their own child’s learning — making social mobility, and the chance to live in a fairer society, out of reach.
The challenge is immense. Not only do young people in the UK have some of the poorest literacy levels across OECD countries but our analysis with Experian also shows that significant literacy problems are entrenched in 86% of communities in England.
Business has an important role to play in tackling the UK’s significant literacy challenge and the Vision for Literacy Business Pledge was created in 2015 to galvanise this support.
Established by the National Literacy Forum, which is led by the National Literacy Trust, the pledge has helped businesses channel their energies and resources into boosting the reading, writing speaking and listening skills of some of the most disadvantaged children and young people in the UK. Last year alone, founding signatory KPMG supported the literacy of more than 500 disadvantaged children and their families through 150 employees volunteering 1,000 hours of their time.
The pledge also demonstrates direct benefits for the businesses involved. For KPMG, 8 in 10 employees who volunteered their time on literacy initiatives last year reported an improvement in their own communication skills, with 7 in 10 reporting improved people skills. More widely, 91% of the businesses who took part in the pledge last year reported increased employee engagement, morale and motivation, with 64% highlighting an improvement in team working skills.
Since 2015, we’ve seen a 46% increase in the number of business pledging their support to tackle the UK’s growing literacy challenge. Amongst the new signatories for 2018 are household names John Lewis, Clarks and Metro Bank.
The Department for Education has also backed the pledge, with former Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening, saying: “There is more to do to tackle social mobility and businesses have a vital role to play in this, so it is encouraging to see so many leading organisations signing the Vision for Literacy Business Pledge. It supports the work we are already doing through our Opportunity Areas programme, which brings together employers, schools and councils to boost attainment from the early years of a child’s education right through to university.”
UK businesses have a vital role to play in creating a society where talented children and young people, no matter what their background, have the same opportunities to fulfil their potential. We look forward to working with the business community in 2018 to make this ambition a reality.
If your business is not part of the pledge this year, there are still lots of ways you can support the literacy of children in your local area. The National Literacy Trust and Walker Books have just launched a fantastic Literacy Toolkit for businesses to gift to primary schools. The toolkit is packed with books, fun activity sheets, teaching resources and much more to inspire children to fall in love with reading — not just in 2018, but for a lifetime. You can also get in touch with the National Literacy Trust to register your interest in being part of the Vision for Literacy Business Pledge 2019.
· Full list of signatories for the Vision for Literacy Business Pledge 2018: Air Business, Amazon, Baker Mckenzie, Beano, Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP, Bird & Bird, Boots Opticians, British Land, Browns Books for Students, Carillion, Clarks, Cleary Gottlieb, Clifford Chance, Costa, Egmont, Experian, The FA, Facebook, First News, Greggs, Hachette UK, HCP, KPMG, John Lewis, Librio, LID Publishing, Man Group, McDonald’s, Metro Bank, Mitie, OCR, The P&M Group, Pan Macmillan, Pearson, Penguin Random House, Peters, Phoenix Group, Premier League, Prinovis UK, PPA, Provident Financial Group, The Publishers Association, Punktuate! London, Purplebricks, PwC UK, The Quarto Group, Rabobank, Reading in Heels, Renaissance Learning, Routledge, Royal Mail, Sainsbury’s, Slaughter and May, Southern Water, Springer Nature, Supersolid, The Day, The Key, The Roald Dahl Story Company, Travers Smith, Turner & Townsend, VINCI Construction UK, Walker Books and WHSmith.
